A Use for the Totally Useless SAL

I had an idea!

I read a discussion somewhere, can't remember where, about how some people use the odd cut off ends of yarn for stuffing toys. And as I was chucking some odd threads into my jar for the Totally Useless SAL, I had the sudden thought to make something at the end of the year and stuff it with all the odds and ends from my jar.

What do you think? I have absolutely no idea what it will be yet, but it will me made specially for that purpose and to celebrate the 2009 TUSAL! Anyone like to join me?

Having just checked the TUSAL info, I think if you've got any old needles in among your SAL contribution, you might want to remove them before stuffing them into something! The same goes for floss labels and other harder or oddly shaped stuff. Although it might make for an interestingly shaped and textured object - LOL!

Here's my (better late than never) May contribution to the SAL.


And here's one with a better shot of the jug I use for the photographs.


I have to confess that this jug is a good glass one that I got from my Mum or Granny when somebody was having a clear out and it's far too nice to be used as an ort container. It lives in my display cupboard and only comes out on special occasions (like TUSAL photos).

My normal, unseen, ort jar is an empty Bonne Maman jam jar - I love empty Bonne Maman jam jars - I use them all over the place!

Return of the Jedi Stash

Remember this, back at the end of March?


Well, look at it now!!


We have our bedroom back AND I can get at my stash!

The loft has been insulated, and we've sorted through most of the boxes and bags that came down, put a lot of stuff back and got rid of a lot too. Now that everything has gone back, I can hardly believe how empty the loft is! But I'm so pleased to have reduced the 15 years worth of junk! There's even space to put more stuff up there - LOL!

While sorting through all the boxes, I was really pleased to rediscover some of my stash from the 1990s when I first started stitching. Things like these magazines -


I remember falling in love with the cover project but not knowing enought to know what to do about it or how to stitch it. That may be different now.


And this one - see that dragon in the corner? I knew enough to be able to do something about that one.



And whatever happened to Needlework magazine?

Of course, I also found cross stitch patterns and a lot of books which I no longer want. Once I sort them out and photograph them, I'll be putting a lot of it up for sale.

There were also one or two odd things in the loft that I was really pleased to find.


I remember occasionally being allowed to play with this tea set when I was a child. I think the pictures are mostly fairy tales, but I've no idea where the donkey comes from, or what it's doing!

And then there were these.


Memories of summer holidays spent collecting cowries on the beach at North Berwick.

Mummys love

There's an apostrophe missing somewhere!

Mummy's love - love of a mother?
Mummy's love - Mummy is love?
Mummys' love - love of all mothers?

Mummys (plural) love (verb)?

Take your pick.

I made the above over the weekend - aren't they cute? I suppose they're a kind of substitute for this which I love, but somehow, I don't want to buy for myself (but anyone's welcome to give me it as a present). Somehow, it just doesn't seem like the sort of thing I should be spending money on.

Anyway, the dolls above were crocheted using 4 ply yarn following the Mummy's Love pattern by Simple Arts Planet.

Then, I was reading Kitty's blog post this morning and thinking about being a mother and also the things it seems to be easier to share online than with 'real' people. (Not that people online aren't 'real' too, of course, but how to distinguish between poeple you know online and those you know in person?)

It got me thinking, yet again, about something I've been sort of meaning to blog about for a long time. Even now, as I think I'm ready to write about this, something still makes me pause and I'm not sure what.

It is something I want to share, I think I just don't want to sound too self pitying, self centred or sorry for myself. That's not why I want to write this.

I want to write this to tell other people out there that there is hope, that post natal depression doen not have to take over your life.

There - I've said it - post natal depression. I suffered from post natal depression following the births of both my children. With Alexander, it was untreated and is the one reason why I only have 2 children and why there is a 7 and a half year gap between them. With Iona, I knew that I didn't want to go through it all again, so I admitted to it and was treated.

Looking back to last year after Iona's birth, for the first couple of weeks I felt like the stuffing had been completely knocked out of me due to the hormonal changes. I could very easily have spent the entire 2 weeks in tears. After that, I began to love being at home and being able to spend all my time with my little baby.

But by the time Iona got to about 6 weeks, I was starting to have the same feelings I'd had when Alexander was a baby. I would spend my day in a constant state of panic. If she was asleep - what would I do if she woke up? If she was awake what would I do if she cried? How on earth could I cope? Goodness only knows why I felt like this, but it was exactly the same with Alexander. And at the same time, I knew that I had no need to feel like that. Both my babies were (and still are) good natured, they wouldn't cry for no reason and if you dealt with that reason, they would stop crying and be smiley little babies again. But the endless worry and panic took all the pleasure out of being with them and with being a mother.

So last year, early on while the hormones were still mucking me about and I was feeling pretty awful anyway, I spoke to my health visitor. And she listened and was very good and kept a lookout for me over the next few weeks. And when the anxiety and depression returned, she sent me straight to the doctor who put me straight on medication.

I was completely and utterly astounded at the difference it made. I went from a vague hope that the medication would make me feel at least a little better, to having the anxiety and depression removed completely. Suddenly, I loved every second I spent with Iona. I went from thinking maybe I wasn't cut out to be a mother to absolutely loving it. I loved the time I had at home being a full time mum and joining in the school run with Alexander.

I would dearly love to have another child, but it won't happen for a variety of reasons. But at least, this time, post natal depression isn't one of them.

So if anyone reading this suspects that they or someone they know is struggling with post natal depression, please act on it - it could make an enormous difference.

Well, I think the blahs are on their way, at least I hope they are, but I don't know that I'm quite back to my normal self yet. I feel like I'm struggling a bit - I've just sat down here at work and written down a list of all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Usually I manage to keep track of things in my head, but I feel like I'm struggling a bit with it at the moment. I'm also struggling a bit to keep up with my blog reading - there always seem to be far too many posts waiting for me in Google Reader and it keeps putting me off catching up with them.

However, I am feeling a bit more positive about the crochet I've been doing recently and enjoying it a bit more. But, I do seem to be desparately procastinating over the floss ring tag I'm supposed to be making for the Tiny Treasures Exchange. If only I could get it finished, I've promised myself that I'll let myself crochet a certain amigurumi animal for my exchange partner.

Last week, I crocheted a monkey for Claire's Secret Monkey Swap, so that's ready to go out nearer the end of the month.

And as I was walking home last night, I suddenly realised that I haven't shown this to you.


I crocheted it from this pattern which I found via Ravelry. It was great fun to crochet! It's a stellated dodecahedron, that is, a twelve sided 3D shape but instead of having flat sides, it has pointy cone type things sticking out making it a kind of 3D twelve pointed star. As I said, it was great fun to crochet - the twelve cone shapes are all joined as you go along, and it's easier to make than you might think.

I thought Iona might like it as a ball or toy (well that's my excuse) but I rather think I like it bettwe than either Iona or Alexander. I put some bells in the middle, but, as I suspected, they're too squashed by the stuffing to jingle very much. I should take it apart a bit, and put the bells into something (like a plastic practise golf ball?) and stuff round that.

When I was planning this post yesterday, I thought I had no interesting photos to share at all, so I made this mosaic.


Some of the gorgeous flower photos I've seen on Flickr recently. Inspirational or what? My Flickr obsession continues!

Multiplication

One little bunny, all on her own ......

Soon became two, (this photo just does not want to line up nicely!)

Then three,

Four,

And five....

Guess what I did last week? And then it got to Friday and I suddenly realised that I have two exchanges to complete by the end of the month!

Something to do with my template

Well, that's one problem solved! If you look on the RHS you should see my followers (particularly if you're using IE), and even I can see them! And it's lovely to see you all - yay! Looks like it was something to do with my template that was stopping my Followers being visible, to me at least. So next, I'll be away on the hunt for a snazzy new template. I just switched to something very basic here to see if my Followers would work.

I'm cross with Google Reader at the moment too. I just skim through all the blogs I have waiting to be read, not reading them properly and rarely commenting. It's the one thing that really bugs me about feed readers - they're just not proactive enough. If anyone knows any better, please let me know!

Because of my current apathetic mood, even photos don't excite me and I'm wasting far too much time looking at nothing in particular on Flickr.

So I'm having a completely apathetic week, still sleeping badly in the bunk beds, and feeling like I'm getting absolutely nothing constructive done in any way shape or form. Blah!

In fact, getting my Followers fixed is the highlight of my week! Think I'll just give up on this week completely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edited later: This template's slightly different and gives me a bit of scope to play around with - could be fun! Now to get all my sidebar widgets sorted out.

Felt and flowers and fun

Yoyo asked me if I was going to post a tutorial on how to make the felt flower I used on my sister's wedding pillow.

Because the flower was based on a free pattern designed and published elsewhere, I hadn't planned to. However, I've come across tutorials for several kinds of felt flower recently, so I thought I'd post links for reference (mine as much as anyone else's!).

• Amy Butler's Snow Mum Pillow - download the pattern free from this page. This provided the inspiration and basic template for the flower I made, mine was just a bit smaller.
  
  
• Peony Flower Felt Flower Clip Tutorial - from Yoonie.
  
  
• Felt Flower + Yarn Pin Tutorial - also from Yoonie.
  
  
• Betz White's Felted Brooch Tutorial
  
  
• Felt flower tutorial on WhipUp.net - similar to the Amy Butler flower, but simpler.
  
  
• Paper flower tutorial - this flower can be made with felt using the same method.
  
  
• FELT FLOWER TUTORIAL
  
  
• Felt dandelion - slightly different, and since I'm not friends with the dandelions in my garden at the moment, I think I'd try a different colour!
  
  
• Simple felt daisy from futuregirl.com.

Here's a pic now of something else I've been working on over the last couple of weeks.


It's inspired by some of the things I've seen on Flickr recently. It was meant to be for Iona's birthday, but thanks to the pillow I made for my sister, I've been running a bit late with it! The lettering is finished, I just have to find some suitable backing fabric as I don't like any of the stuff I have lying around at the moment. I'm going to put it to one side for the moment as I suspect I'll find something useful in my stash, once I can get at it again. (We have made a small dent in all the stuff in the bedroom, but not enough to be able to get at the things that are supposed to be in the room!)


And can anyone tell me where to find some more time? Some days I feel like ideas and plans are bouncing around inside my head, fizzing out my ears. But with no more than an hour or two stitching/crafting per day, I just can’t keep up - it gets sooo frustrating!

Read this post

When I started crocheting more last year, I had a good rummage around the Internet to see what I could find. I was disappointed not to find the same sort of community as we have with all the stitching bloggers around.

Kim Werker has written a fascinating post on this subject. She doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but she's asking the right questions!

I'm curious about the point about not just blogging about a single narrow subject. Opinions please? Is the subject of my blogging too narrow? I'm not sure. Is there anything anyone would like me to say more about?

Thoughts on stitching magazines

Thanks for all the detailed and interesting feedback on my post on British and American stitching! It’s really fascinating to get such detailed comments.

Everybody who commented seemed to agree with my opinion of the British stitching magazines – limited in their scope and designs. They also tend to repeat themselves. American magazines do seem to be a little better and offer a bit more variety.

This brings me back to something else that has crossed my mind a few times – who are the British magazines aimed at? I’m thinking here of the Cross Stitcher and World of Cross Stitching type of magazine. (There are others concentrating on smaller designs and stitching for cards but I look at them even more rarely than the other two.) What is the market for UK cross stitching? How does it work? All I can think is that the magazines are aimed at a static, unambitious market.

It makes me come over all evangelical and want to go out and beat people about the head with ideas of using stitches other than basic crosses, designs other than cutesy animals, cartoon characters, landscapes/views or traditional flowers. There is so much more to the wonderful world of stitching – so much more you can do with a basic cross stitch and so many more simple stitches and variations that are also easy to use.

However, there is another side to British magazines – I wonder whether it doesn’t intimidate people who might otherwise be interested in going beyond the simple cross. There are a couple of magazines, Stitch (from the Embroiderer’s Guild) and Classic Stitches. Both sometimes include designs based on cross stitch but taking it further and using other stitches and techniques. However, I wonder sometimes whether these magazines aren’t rather intimidating to the cross stitcher who might want to take things further. Both Stitch and Classic Stitches include designs and projects using other (not counted) techniques such as patchwork, felt, stumpwork, canvaswork, cutwork, whitework, goldwork, Brazilian embroidery and all sorts of cutting edge, arty techniques that I too find intimidating. I wonder sometimes whether this kind of magazine doesn’t scare people off. Stitch in particular intimidates me, Classic Stitches I have subscribed to in the past, but even then felt there were too few designs that I would actually stitch.

New Stitches magazine tries to bridge the gap, including designs and techniques which encourage readers to look beyond the basic cross, but still many of the designs are too unadventurous in their content, verging too far towards the cutesy, ‘traditional’ designs favoured by the main cross stitch magazines, even though they may incorporate other techniques

Everyone who commented on my previous post did agree, though, that the Internet is a wonderful place to find inspiration and a wide variety of designs using different techniques and stitches. As such, it allows you to grow as a stitcher however you choose, whether it is in the type of designs you choose to stitch, or in the techniques you use.

Could DianeH and Jessica email me (email in my profile) with your snail mail addresses? I'll send each of you one of the kits from my previous post.

A little something

About 10 days ago, I was temporarily forced to abandon my existing crafty goings-on as I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms!

Withdrawal from what? Ummm, cross stitch and making biscornus?

I hadn’t planned to stitch a biscornu this month as I already had enough going on, but as usual, things didn’t go entirely to plan. As a compromise, I decided to make my biscornu smaller than usual, but that led to me challenging myself to see how small I could go!

And the end result?


It actually has me wondering whether it would be possible to make tiny mini sized biscornus and use them instead of buttons on a ‘normal’ sized biscornu. Hmmm ……

The design is very simple. Part of my inspiration for the larger biscornu was this photo from Loreta – I love the way the buttons stand out.


Two squares, each 30 stitches x 30 stitches. Divide each side in 3 to create a grid of 9 squares. I then filled in alternate squares of the grid with cross stitch, using a varigated DMC floss and then attached a button to the centre of each square except the middle one. The biscornu was then made up as usual with further buttons attached to the centre of each side.

The tiny biscornu is based on a square 10 stitches by 10 stitches, each filled with a Jessica stitch. I wasn't sure how the Jessica stitch would stand up to the bending when the biscornu was made up, but it's working well.


I love the way the biscornus look in my Granny's pansy bowl. I thought the pansy colours would look nice with the biscornu colours.

I’ve also succumbed and joined for Totally Useless SAL! I’d been watching for a while, but it was time I joined in.


Here’s my collection for this month. Not a lot yet - there are various bits of whitish floss and thread and some more colourful yarn from the easter eggs I made for Alexander to hunt in the garden.

Cute crochet inspiration

If my crafty plans for the weekend work out, then I should have plenty of my own photos to share next week, but nothing's yet at the stage that I'd be ready to share.

I also need to go through all the great comments I had on my last post and draw together some thoughts on that. I need a bit more time and space to do that than I get here at work, so, hopefully again, I'll come up with something over the weekend.

It would be just my luck if nothing got done!

So today, I thought I'd share with you some of my cute crochet inspitation.


I really want to make one like little Rosita up there (centre, top row) - I can't get over all that 'hair'!

I was disappointed that this one didn't have the right permissions to appear in the mosaic.


precious baby
Originally uploaded by saplanet


And of course, as soon as I'd made the mosaic, I realised I'd missed out these too!

Florence - Amigurumi White Bear Originally uploaded by Pepika

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil Originally uploaded by Chiwaluv Chi's

Some of the patterns for these are available in various places like the designer's blog, website or etsy shop. I've been wondering a bit recently whether I'm just a bit lazy, I mean, it can't be that hard to work out a pattern for something like a lot of these, based, say, on a basic amigurumi bear. But I'm the mug who falls for the designer's original every time and I have to buy yet another pattern!

My biggest problem with these patterns is the yarn. As I'm sure many have said before, and many more will say in future, most American yarn brands aren't available in the UK! Although I did find out today that I can get Lion Brand Yarn in the UK (bit pricey!), I normally try and work out some approximation. But with something like Florence or Rosita, the appearance of the yarn is half the attraction!

British and American stitching and a giveaway

I found it interesting to see my letter published in World of Cross Stitching issue 150.



One of the things I’m most curious about is the way that my original email has been edited for publication. Here’s my original email.



I appreciate that when I originally wrote the email, I was not thinking of it being published word for word. I’m not entirely sure what I thought, the pictures I attached were more important. Under these circumstances, the email was almost certain to be edited.

The language used in the edited version, however, does not, to me, sound like me! To be honest – I hope I sound more intelligent and slightly less over-enthusiastic! And it’s got me thinking about UK cross stitch magazines. I don’t often buy magazines for two reasons – the designs don’t often appeal and the style in which they’re written.

And I was reminded me of an article by Patricia Bage in Classic Stitches towards the end of last year (I can’t check as it’s stored with the still inaccessible stash) in which she commented on the differences in the British and American markets. Apparently, in the American market, designs using mixed stitches are far more popular, whereas the British market prefers cross stitch alone. I think also that kits were perhaps more popular in the British market, whereas in the American market, there was much more interest in ‘manually’ kitting up a project and selecting the fabric and flosses.

Now, I realise I’m generalising very much here, but I’d be interested in the comments and observations of others on this.

I wonder how unusual I am for a British stitcher and I wonder about the role of the Internet in this. In some recent British magazines, biscornus seem to be being sold as new and exciting. I first discovered biscornus around 3 years ago when I first got into stitching on the Internet, so they don’t seem quite so new to me (but still exciting) and the magazines seem to be out of step.

The stitching interests of the British stitchers whose blogs I read also seem to be far broader than just cross stitched pictures and I suspect Patricia Bage, in her article, missed out another market (as well as other parts of the globe), an international, perhaps internet-driven market, where people, perhaps like me, find the ‘home’ market too limited and are inclined to shop online and potentially internationally.

Anyone like to comment? And how typical are the American stitchers I encounter online of American stitchers? What's it like in other countries?

Finally, a giveaway. As a prize for having my letter published in the magazine, I've been sent a couple of small cross stitch kits, neither of which I am ever likely to stitch.



If anyone would like one or other or both of them, leave me a comment saying that you're interested!

From here to eternity

From



To



in 12 short months!

Where did the last year go? Can anyone tell me? Even Alexander is convinced that Iona arrived only 3 or 4 months ago! So how come we all celebrated her 1st birthday over the weekend?


I know I'm biased, but isn't she just gorgeous?

The creamy white version

Here it is! My sister's ring pillow, finished on Monday evening. I do like the way it's turned out, even though I did, as usual, change a few things as I was going along.

My sister hasn't seen it yet and I won't see her before she heads off to Florida for the wedding, so I've been out to buy a box and brown paper to send it off to Manchester where it needs to be by the end of next week.


I'm particularly pleased with the way I've attached the ribbons and arranged them to hold the rings - it was an area that was worrying me a bit and for a long time I just didn't know how to do it. I went from ribbon tied in a bow (but where to put it on the cushion?) to single loops of ribbon, to double loops of ribbon, to one long bit of ribbon attached in a kind of figure of eight configuration.


The final piece in the puzzle came when I saw the white felt flower just sitting centred on top of the prototype cushion. In an instant it all came together in my mind and I knew exactly what to do. So the ribbon is attached in the figure of eight (sideways) with two heart shaped pearl buttons on top. The flower is then placed to cover the buttons - the ribbon just hangs out below looking pretty and decorative. In the photos I've got a couple of white plastic rings attached in place of wedding rings so that I can use them to explain to my sister how it works.



Would anyone be interested in my posting more detailed notes on how I made this? It wouldn't be a detailed tutorial as I don't have the photos to back it up, but I could write rough instructions and give links to some of the things I used.

I have another felty new start as well, but not so much progress on it yet as I gave myself a night off last night! If you look at my felt inspiration, you might get a clue as to what I'm going to do here.


A gift for a special little girl who has a special birthday very soon.

Distracted

I've been a little distracted recently. I'm supposed to be making a ring pillow for my sister's wedding. About 10 days ago, I finished the prototype.


I'll just emphasise that this is a prototype - the 'real' thing will not be purple and blue and green and yellow! Imagine the above in a creamy white colour.

I made the prototype so that I could see how the felt behaved in being made into this sort of thing and to test the size of the actual pillow and the size of the flower and how the flower and the pillow worked together.

I was rather pleased with the prototype. But now, when I should be working on the 'real thing' I keep being distracted by cute crochet.

Last week I just had to make this.


I saw something similar on Flickr, and just had to work out a pattern to make my own. I'm not completely pleased with it - it needs fine tuning, but I don't know when that'll happen.

Over the weekend these tumbled off my hook.


I definately need to make at least another half dozen of these! I have all sorts of yarn and colours that I want to try out on them! The instructions for these little birdies are here, as well as in the book Kooky Crochet.

And I have a number of things I want to make for Iona's birthday, one of which I'd like finished by Friday!

Well, at least I'm going to have a few quiet evenings this week as my DH has gone off to Kuwait for work and Alexander is going to stay with my parents in their caravan for a few days.

So no excuse for not having a good go at the wedding pillow at least!

Lesley is ......

I saw this meme at this blog (after I got Google to translate it into English) and thought it looked like fun, so here we are.

Do this: Google your name plus "is" in quotation marks, that is, "Lesley is" for me. Copy the first five matches in which sentences containing "Lesley is ...." and upload them to your blog.

I was curious to see what Google came up with!

1. "Lesley is stalkin me" - oops!
2. "Lesley is now in a promoted post in administration at the bank" - ooh thanks! Not that I know anything about banking, but who does, these days?
3. "Lesley is 19 stone lighter" - I wish! LOL! Although if I really was 19 stone lighter, there wouldn't be any of me left!
4. "Lesley is about to star on the West End stage" - Yay - fantastic idea!
5. "Lesley is Moore" - Huh??? Roger? Julianne? Demi? I think I'll go for Julianne if I've got to be someone else.


On a different note, Lesley is also dead chuffed with the beautiful biscornu she received from Ronel in the Tiny Treasures Exchange.



Isn't it lovely? Ronel sent some lovely goodies too - some DMC floss, ribbon, beads fabric, and a lovely letter which almost had me blushing! LOL She seems to think I'm some kind of biscornu expert which I can assure you is far from the truth! I just love to play around with different ways of doing things!



And finally, evidence that I have stitched something other than biscornus over the last few weeks.


My first 'icicle'! I stitched this one on my 28ct yellow checked Graziano linen using varigated DMC floss and following a chart from Les chroniques de Frimousse.

This icicle has now been sent off to make a new home elsewhere, but I think I'll have to stitch up a lot more of them - they're such fun and a quick stitch!